


Florida Man Stabs Gas Station Customer While Also Holding Small Dog

by advancedclass



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-27 08:38:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20404837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/advancedclass/pseuds/advancedclass





	Florida Man Stabs Gas Station Customer While Also Holding Small Dog

As a rule, Gary didn't hate shopping the way some of his friends did. He understood the human need to turn off the computer, to leave the house, to buy toilet paper. There was always the chance that this time the flirty cashier would be sincere or that you would reach for a box of Kraft macaroni at the same time as a cute girl and your eyes would meet and she too liked cyberpunk dystopias and raiding with her guild on Friday nights.

Gary believed if you were going to fantasize, you should go big.

Today, though, Gary (who had been voted 'most optimistic' in a recent survey at the call centre where he worked - a call centre that conducted telephone surveys, which occupation had caused unfortunate side effects in a number of long-term employees beyond simply 'being someone who had worked in a call centre for longer than a month') was not feeling good about this outing. It was raining. It was March 30. Tomorrow he would have to be out of his apartment by noon. He was desperately hoping to receive a fraction of his initial deposit back (money was tight, always, but he was also hoping to upgrade his computer in anticipation of the April 11 release of _Annals of Lorfage: Ice Wind Apocalypse_). The key word there had always been 'desperately' but half an hour earlier the state of his feelings vis-à-vis the return of his deposit had become 'hoping with the fierce but impossible hope of a regular lottery player who was choosing to buy another ticket instead of toothpaste'.

And not brand name toothpaste.

He had run out of Mr. Clean Magic Erasers. Soaked in formaldehyde (maybe) they were the only thing in his experience that could get floors, walls, and bathroom fixtures near clean enough to pass an inspection by steely-eyed landlords. He had coaxed every last spark of cleaning power from the thin chalk gritty faux-sponges and when he had gone to the cupboard that fateful half-hour earlier there was nothing.

It was 11:00 PM.

On a Sunday.

It would take an hour, at least, to get to the nearest Wal-Mart (how he hated his choice in apartment locations now). Valuable cleaning time lost to get there, more time lost on the way back.

Instead, Gary chose to gamble.

He walked (ran - well, jogged - well, sort of jogged, maybe speed walked) the few blocks to the nearby gas station. The small convenience store (more like INconvenience store, he told his friends) didn't sell much, and what it did sell was marked up to prices calculated to make a man's wallet weep, exploiting people in terrible cleaning supply situations like Gary, but he knew they had Mr. Clean Magic Erasers.

It was his only hope.

At this hour, the gas station was deserted except for a bored employee behind the counter, reading _50 Shades of Ghee_ (the Bollywood-inspired parody of the bestselling novel that had almost reached the sale levels of its progenitor) and only looking up when there was the sound of a car pulling in, and one other apparently desperate late-night shopper. A man much taller than Gary (although most men were) and much fitter than Gary (ditto) in biker attire (torn jeans, leather vest, no shirt, massive boots, angry tattoos). The only incongruous element to the man's bristling persona was the dog he was carrying in one beefy arm.

It was a tiny dog. It was an ugly dog. The man's arm had more hair on it than the dog and most of what the dog had was collected in angry black-grey tufts on its bulbous head. There were snaggly teeth protruding from under slack dog lips, poking at incompatible angles. A spikey collar, black leather (of course) hung loose around the dog's skinny neck.

Gary was pretty sure the dog shouldn't have been in the store. He wasn't even sure the dog should be alive, looking the way it did.

Then, Gary made the biggest mistake of his day.

He looked at the dog.

The dog looked back at him.

It was the first time Gary had ever seen an expression that conveyed such a powerful desire to give someone a wedgie and shove them in the toilet on a dog. He wouldn't have thought a dog even knew what a wedgie was, until this dog. This dog clearly knew.

The man holding the dog - the dog's leather-and-chain clad slave transport - looked from his dog to Gary. "You looking at Mr. Muscles? You got a problem with Mr. Muscles?"

Lies and words of plausible deniability rushed to Gary's lips, but before he could unleash them and deny even knowing what a dog was, the man (or maybe the dog itself) plunged a knife deep into Gary's belly.


End file.
